Simoniz
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2007
- Messages
- 242
Took my Bayliner 175 out for a run yesterday with a couple of friends. It had been raining all morning but was forecast to clear up in the afternoon so I insisted that the trip was on and that the weather would get better.
By the time we got to the boat the rain had stopped and once we got out onto the open water part of the lake, the clouds were breaking up and there was blue sky to be seen to the south west.
After a few minutes cruising along nicely on the plane, suddenly there was lots of vibration accompanied by a rise in engine rpm and loss of drive, just as if the prop had been trimmed too far out of the water and was ventilating.
My first two thoughts were, Im gonna look a fool if my boat breaks down and we have to get towed back and the hassle and money of fixing the problem. I thought it was either the drive coupler or the propellor coming adrift.
I experimented for a bit, sometimes it was fine and sometimes little load at all on the engine, which convinced me that the coupler had gone.
Finally I stopped all together, and trimmed the drive all the way up, to see if there was anything to see and when we looked over the back of the boat, we saw a large piece of plastic sacking floating free of the propellor. I fished it out, together with 2 other bits and checked that there was nothing further wrapped around the prop or driveshaft and everything was once again hunky dory.
I guess that the plastic sack was wrapped around the prop and was acting as a shroud round the blades, thus causing them to slip, instead of gripping the water. First time Ive experienced anything like that in 7 years of boating - just glad it was that and not as I first feared, also that the plastic hadn't wrapped itself around the water intake area of the leg, although my water alarm would hopefully have alerted me of that pretty quick!
Happy Boating!
By the time we got to the boat the rain had stopped and once we got out onto the open water part of the lake, the clouds were breaking up and there was blue sky to be seen to the south west.
After a few minutes cruising along nicely on the plane, suddenly there was lots of vibration accompanied by a rise in engine rpm and loss of drive, just as if the prop had been trimmed too far out of the water and was ventilating.
My first two thoughts were, Im gonna look a fool if my boat breaks down and we have to get towed back and the hassle and money of fixing the problem. I thought it was either the drive coupler or the propellor coming adrift.
I experimented for a bit, sometimes it was fine and sometimes little load at all on the engine, which convinced me that the coupler had gone.
Finally I stopped all together, and trimmed the drive all the way up, to see if there was anything to see and when we looked over the back of the boat, we saw a large piece of plastic sacking floating free of the propellor. I fished it out, together with 2 other bits and checked that there was nothing further wrapped around the prop or driveshaft and everything was once again hunky dory.
I guess that the plastic sack was wrapped around the prop and was acting as a shroud round the blades, thus causing them to slip, instead of gripping the water. First time Ive experienced anything like that in 7 years of boating - just glad it was that and not as I first feared, also that the plastic hadn't wrapped itself around the water intake area of the leg, although my water alarm would hopefully have alerted me of that pretty quick!
Happy Boating!
